Fresh calls for SNP's 'detested' named person policy to be scrapped

The Scottish Government is facing renewed calls to scrap its hugely controversial “named person” scheme after senior lawyers said measures to improve the legislation did not meet the concerns of the UK’s highest court.

Nicola Sturgeon’s government had to redraw its plans to assign every child a “state guardian” after an embarrassing defeat in the UK Supreme Court, which ruled last year that parts of the original proposal breached parents’ human rights.

Ministers have since published fresh legislation that waters down the named person’s ability to interfere with a child’s upbringing.

But the Faculty of Advocates said that measures designed to clarify how information about children should be shared did not go far enough.

Critics claimed the original plan was a snooper’s charter that would have allowed the named person - a teacher or health visitor - to share deeply personal information without parents knowing.

The faculty’s intervention prompted fresh calls from campaigners for the government to “do the honourable thing” and scrap the “detested Big Brother scheme” altogether.

Liz Smith, Scottish Conservative education spokesman, said the new bill did not fully address the concerns raised by the court and ministers had caused further confusion by telling parents “they are no longer obliged to accept the advice of a named person”, while also telling councils they have to provide a named person for every child.

The revamped legislation places restrictions on the circumstances in which state guardians will be able to share information about a child, warning that they must comply with data protection, human rights and confidentiality laws.

This means they cannot share confidential information without the consent of a child or their parents unless they can prove there is an “overriding” reason for doing so, such as the detection of crime.

However, the faculty said the new Children and Young People (Information Sharing) (Scotland) Bill failed to address the lack of clarity in the original legislation, and the lack of safeguards for those affected by it.

It said "clear and accessible" rules were needed for teachers, health visitors and social workers, who would be required to assess whether sharing information was proportionate.

It added: ”We remain concerned that this is an exceptionally difficult requirement to impose on professionals in respect of every child in Scotland.

"Its imposition risks making their job considerably more difficult and undermining the trust of families and the willingness to share information with the professionals concerned.”

The lawyers want to see guidance for named persons written "in more accessible language" and a helpline provided for them.

The new legislation scraps the previous statutory duty to share private information, including a child’s pregnancy, for example, and replaces it with a responsibility merely to “consider” whether doing so would help a child’s wellbeing.

It still advocates a state guardian being appointed for one million children under 18, with health visitors assuming the role for pre-school children and teachers and councils for older youngsters.

A spokesman for the No To Named Persons (NO2NP) campaign, which won the Supreme Court victory, said that rather than trying to save face by making the “bare minimum of changes”, the Scottish Government needed to accept how badly it got the policy wrong, and “scrap the scheme altogether”.

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said it was confident the new bill, which could be introduced next year, “fully addressed” the concerns of the Supreme Court, and claimed it would bring “consistency, clarity and coherence to the sharing of information about children’s wellbeing”.